"So have I," said he.
"Stephen," says I, "I don't exactly know, but I shouldn't wonder if I'd had a change of heart."
"Don't know of anybody that needed it less," says Stephen, warming his hands. "However, if it makes you any more comfortable, I sha'n't object; except the part of it that belongs to me,I sha'n't have that changed."
The fire'd begun to brighten now, and the room was red and pleasant-looking; still I knew he couldn't see me plainly, and I waited a minute, and lingered round, pretending I was doing something, which I wasn't; I hated to break the old way of things; and then I took the tongs and blew a coal and lighted the dip and held it up, as if I was looking for something. Pretty soon I found it; it was a skein of linen thread I was going to wind for Lurindy. Then I got the swifts and came and sat down in front of the candle.
"There," says I, "the swifts is broken. What shall I do?"
"I'll hold the thread, if that's your trouble," says Stephen, and came and sat opposite to me while I wound.
I wondered whether he was looking at me, but I didn't durst look up,and then I couldn't, if my life had depended upon it. At last we came to the end; then I managed to get a glance edgeways. He hadn't been looking at all, I don't believe, till that very moment, when he raised his eyes.
"Are folks always so sober, when they've had a change of heart?" he asked, with his pleasant smile.
"They are, when they've had a change of face," I was going to say; but just then mother came in with her bundle of yarn, and Lurindy came down, and there was such a deal of welcoming and talking, that I slipped round and laid the table and had the tea made before they thought of it. I'd about made up my mind now that Stephen would act as if nothing had happened, and pretend to like me just the same, because he was so tender-hearted and couldn't bear to hurt my feelings nor anybody's; and I'd made up my mind, too, that, as soon as he gave me a chance, I'd tell him I was set against marriage: leastwise, I wouldn't have him, because I wouldn't have any man marry me out of pity; and the more I cared for him, the more I couldn't hamper an ugly face on him forever. So, you see, I had quite resolved, that, cost me what it would, I'd say 'No,' if Stephen asked me. Well, it's a very good thing to make resolutions; but it's a great deal better to break them, sometimes.
Having come to my conclusions, I grew as merry as any of them; and when mother put two spoons into Stephen's cup, I told him he was going to have a present. And he said he guessed he knew what it was; and I said it must be a mitten, I'd heard that Martha Smith had taken to knitting lately; and he confounded Martha Smith. Mother and Lurindy were very busy talking about the yarn, and how Mr. Fisher wanted the next socks knit; and Stephen asked me what that dish was beside me. I said, it was lemon-pie, and the top-crust was made of kisses, and would he have some? And he said, he didn't care for anybody's kisses but mine, and he believed he wouldn't. And I told him the receipt of this came from the Queen's own kitchen. And he said, he didn't know that the Queen of England was any better than the Queen of Hearts. Then I said, I supposed he remembered how the latter lady was served by the Knave of Hearts in 'Mother Goose'? And he replied, that he wasn't going to be Jack-at-a-pinch for anybody. And so on, till mother finished tea.
After tea, I sat up to the table and ended some barley-trimming that I'd just learned how to make; and as the little kernels came tumbling out from under my fingers, Stephen sat beside and watched them as if it was a field of barley, growing, reaped, and threshed under his eyes. By-and-by I finished it; and then, rummaging round in the table-drawer, I found the sock that I was knitting, waiting at the very stitch where I left it, 'most a year ago.
"Well, if that isn't lucky!" said I. And I sat down on a stool by the fireside, determined to finish that sock that night; and no sooner had I set the needles to dancing, like those in the fairy-story, than open came the kitchen-door again, and in, out of the dark, stepped Aunt Mimy.
"Good-evenin', Miss Ruggles!" says she. "Heow d' ye du, Emerline? hope yer gwine ter stay ter hum a spell. Why, Stephen, 's this you? Quite a femily-party, I declare fur't! Wai, Miss Ruggles, I got kind o' tired settin' in the dark, an', ez I looked out an' see the dips blazin' in yer winder, thinks I, I'll jest run up an' see w'at's ter pay."
"Why, there's only one dip," says Lurindy.
"Wal, thet's better 'n none," answered Miss Mimy.
I had enough of the old Adam left in me to be riled at her way of begging as much as ever I was; but I saw that Stephen was amused; he hadn't ever happened to be round, when Aunt Mimy was at her tricks.
"No, Miss Ruggles," continued she, "I thank the Lord I ha'n't got a complainin' sperrit, an' hed jest ez lieves see by my neighbor's dip ez my own, an', mebbe ye 'll say, a sight lieveser."
And then Miss Mimy pulled out a stocking without beginning or end, and began to knit as fast as she could rattle, after she 'd fixed one needle in a chicken-bone, and pinned the chicken-bone to her side.
"Wal, Emerline," says she, "I s'pose ye've got so grand down ter the mills, thet, w'at 'ith yer looms an' machines an' tic-doloreux, ye won't hev nothin' ter say ter the old way uv knittin' socks."
"Does this look like it, Aunt Mimy?" says I, shaking my needles by way of answer. "I'm going to finish this pair to-night."
"Oh," says she, "you be, be you? Wal, ef I don't e'en a'most vum it's the same one! ef ye ha'n't been nigh abeout a hull year a-knittin' one pair uv socks!"
"How do you know they're the same pair?" asked I.
"By a mark I see you sot in 'em ter the top, ef ye want ter know, afore I thought it would be hangin' by the eyelids the rest uv yer days. Wal, I never 'xpected ye'd be much help ter yer mother; ye're tew fond uv hikin' reound the village."
"Indeed, Miss Mimy," said Lurindy, kind of indignant, "she's always been the greatest help to mother."
"I don't know how I should have made both ends meet this year, if it hadn't been for her wages," said mother.
Stephen was whittling Miss Mimy's portrait on the end of a stick, and laughing. I was provoked with mother and Lurindy for answering the thing, and was just going to speak up, when I caught Stephen's eye, and thought better of it. Pretty soon Aunt Mimy produced a bundle of herbs from her pocket, and laid them on the table.
"Oh, thank you, Aunt Jemimy," says mother. "Pennyroyal and catnip's always acceptable."
"Yes," said Aunt Mimy. "An' I'll take my pay in some uv yer dried apples. Heow much does Fisher give fur socks, Miss Ruggles?" she asked, directly.
"Fifty cents and I find,fifteen and he finds."
"An' ye take yer pay out uv the store? Varry reasonable. I wuz thinkin' uv tryin' my han' myself;business's ruther dull, folks onkimmon well this fall. Heow many strings yer gwine ter give me fur the yarbs?"
Then mother went up garret to get the apples and spread the herbs to dry, and Lurindy wanted some different needles, and went after her. Stephen'd just heaped the fire, and the great blaze was tumbling up the chimney, and Miss Mimy lowered her head and looked over her great horn-bowed spectacles at me.
"Wal, Emerline Ruggles," says she, after a while, going back to her work, "you've lost all your pink cheeks!"
I suppose it took me rather sudden, for all at once a tear sprung and fell right down my work. I saw it glistening on the bright needles a minute, and then my eyes filmed so that I felt there was more coming, and I bent down to the fire and made believe count my narrowings. After all, Aunt Mimy was kind of privileged by everybody to say what she pleased. But Stephen didn't do as every one did, always.